MERRICK

Founder and CEOin Los Angeles, California

Merrick is an award-winning entrepreneur, creative strategist, and digital media pioneer. He has dedicated his life to strategically pushing the limits of technology-powered creative media, multi-platform storytelling, and technology-at-large.

Merrick's career started in the early-90s dot com era and includes team or contract roles at NCSA (Mosaic), Macromedia Flash (now Adobe Flash), Urchin Software (now Google Analytics), Whitman-Hart/marchFIRST, and a few of the world's largest advertising agencies.

In 2000, Merrick founded a design, communications and technology service agency that would become Tangible Worldwide (previously known as Lakonic). The agency was once recognized as one of the fastest growing interactive agencies in the world. Tangible's clients include: Walmart, T-Mobile, Gemini Spirits (Sazerac), Chillingo (EA Mobile), AIGA, Pitchfork, and MTV.

A critical heart condition forced Merrick into early retirement by 2011. Faced with a one percent chance of survival he devoted his time and resources to mentoring young entrepreneurs, angel investing, and researching the economic and health effects of early-stage startup lifestyles. He joined Wieden+Kennedy's startup accelerator program (PIE) as a venture partner, combining his advertising and tech startup experience to build its first class. In 2012, he co-founded an eight-figure venture capital fund. He also invested millions into and served on the boards of various startups including PIE alumni VendScreen (acquired) and Cloudability.

An experimental surgery saved Merrick’s life in 2013. During recovery, he wrote and consulted on various projects while exploring new entrepreneurial opportunities. Now officially out of retirement, Merrick is dedicating his life to the field that saved it: Science. He is taking everything he knows about startups and digital media and applying it to his own lifestyle brand, a digital network dedicated to making science cool.